Let’s just have a little looksie at the various things I have had to do at various interviews. I don’t know why; call it a fun exercise in list-making.

1. Psychometric testing – While I appreciate this is probably common for many, many jobs, it is not common in the sort of field I work in. One notable interview I had to take three hours worth of tests, some of which were almost insulting in their level of stupidness.

2. Written testing – Reading a scenario about setting, assessing, and managing targets, then having to write a big ass paper about it. Fine. Easy enough.

3. Traditional skills-based interview with a panel – Done a lot of these bad boys. One notable one was with FIVE members of panel. Nice. This is often coupled with the other techniques in this list.

4. Motivational/Personality/Are You A Sex Offender interviews – longer, in depth interviews looking at my emotional resilience, reasons for wanting to work in this field, past experiences and the affect they have on my professional life, etc. A lot about values and beliefs here. This is probably my favourite type of interview, and possibly where my strengths lie as well.

5. Group Interviews – Yes, well, again this is normal for some jobs. But I once went for a counselling placement. It was a group interview, and we all knew only one of us was going to get the job. Talk about awkward. (Good thing I got it. Muhahaha.)

6. Presentations – Always a killjoy. This can include a planned presentation with materials created by myself beforehand, ranging in scope, topic, and audience. Fun for the whole family. While I am probably the best at this, it is the one I like the least.

7. Roleplaying – No kidding. I had to sit back-to-back with a potential employer and pretend to speak on the phone with a distressed teenager. Innnnnnnnteresting.

8. Schmoozy interviewing – I define this as interviewing for a job you already know you are going to get. It usually involves being taken out for a nice meal.

I’m sure I have forgotten some of the stuff I’ve had to do. What about you? Your worst interview? The weirdest thing you were asked to do? I have a particular area of interest in this area…for the time being.

I have gotten every counselling position I’ve ever gone for, which I try to cling to when I think about how many jobs I have not gotten. I have a skill where I manage to be going up against internal applicants all the freaking time. I have been offered ‘substitute’ jobs in a number of cases – promotions to roles I hadn’t applied for, other positions that would be newly created, training roles to be expanded in time.

My experience with job interviews in this country is that I am always one half point (or something equally ridiculous and depressing) below the person the company chooses to appoint. Again, we’re not speaking about counselling roles.

I hope I do well tomorrow. It’s a #4 type interview, so while it’s right up my street, it’s also very difficult to prepare for. I am weak when it comes to preparing for interviews anyway because of my (misplaced?) self-confidence. But I’ve just spent a couple of hours really looking at the job role and the values of the company. I’m feeling hopeful as I genuinely stand behind their mission statement 100%, so I hope all my answers would reflect my core values as matching with theirs.

And on I go, babbling ever forwards.

This is a job to supervise counsellors who work with children/young people. For a fantastic organisation. I think I hope I get it.

Ok. TMD has just brought garlic bread out. How easily my attention wanders. I don’t have any more little LGBTQ labels to add here, but I think maybe it was just important for me to say I am very, very trans-positive.

I don’t need to blog about this, because I think I provide a living example of emerging with sweatpants. Would you judge me if I told you I’ve worn a pair of WONDERFUL sweatpants a camp gave me this summer every single evening for a few hours, and I’ve NEVER washed them? If you would judge me, then this is just a hypothetical question.

Want to hear a story about how pathetic I was as a youth? I went to Catholic school. Every once in a great while, we had ‘dress down’ days. I think these were excuses for us to show how cool we were when we were not wearing dresses made out of green tartan. Anyway, I couldn’t wear jeans due to my button phobia (a story for a different time). So what did I wear when I was 13/14? An outfit of pink – sweatshirt and sweatpants.

This was not like the trendy outfits of nowadays. This was what your grandmother probably wore to clean the windows.

“purple days”
stinky zit
star forehead
healthy weight for a latina

I don’t know your height, plus I’m not a doctor. But I DO have enough pubic hair to possibly qualify me as a latina.

gimmie the E

I picture an exhuberant cheerleader soliciting drugs.

“boobs burst”

There was a horrible show on this week – ‘The Man Whose Arms Exploded.’ Huge muscles, blood dripping down skin, TMD and I quickly turning off the tv.

do i have to shit all the time on my person

…No.

bursting zit google
dramastic, writer’s name

It’s ‘existere’ and ‘opposite gender soulmate.’

oogle the google
latin, shit fly

I think this is my new favourite search. It even tops madness cat 6.

1 smelly armpit suddenly
how to make mild sauce

If you find out, will you tell me?

how to say good things about people

My guess is your mother would want you to keep your mouth shut until you learned how. I don’t know if I agree with her or not.

Okay. Get ready for some metaphor and philosophy and general stupidness. Are you focused, paying attention, wearing your thinking caps?

Chickens = all my friends who are somehow fucking famously creative, living in a city where fuckloads of people have creative jobs and seem to think nothing of their fantastic lives, being surrounded by actual possibilities.

Egg = my own yearning to live a creative life.

Which came first? Egg was always there, just a lot more uncooked than it curently is.

Lately I’ve been seeing a friend’s face splashed on posters all over the city. There’s a ‘best of’ album coming out, and every time I see him on a poster I’m just like, What? What the fuck. Best of? You’re in your twenties.

But people here are playing guitars, writing screenplays, directing plays, singing in operas, conducting orchestras. This is how people live. The more ‘pedestrian’ are earning money in journalism, producing tv channels, writing tv shows, writing sex columns in national publications. Still another layer live secret lives of performing at small gigs, filming short movies, etc.

I wonder what would have happened to me if I had grown up in an environment where these things actually seemed real. I mean, I grew up in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was lovely and I loved it, don’t get me wrong, but the things that seemed possible included marriage, children, an okay house, two cars, and a semi-okay-ish job.

Suddenly I see people around me earning money from doing stuff that other people only dream of doing? It’s surreal at times. And so normal – I think that’s what gets me. It’s all a bunch of ordinary people. They all shit, cry when someone dies, pick their nose. And they are artists, writers, sculptors, singers. They jump around on stage, flinging guitars around and fighting with their druggie bandmates. They have film premieres and go next door for coffee while the movie’s on because they can’t stand to see it one more time. They sit in cafes on the phone, arranging and rearranging lines in a play. They hang out with Rufus fucking Wainwright!!

And they are so normal. And they are my friends.

This makes me think: I am normal, too. Maybe I could be another ordinary person living what I see as quite an extraordinary life. But you know, a lot of what I do is extraordinary. I sit with people, watch them change, feel myself change. I would not like to downplay that.

Earlier this week I found a new doctor and registered there. This is highly unusual for me. Anyone around me can tell you that I’ll live somewhere for two years, and only register once I need to see a doctor. I’ve also just tried to schedule a cervical smear – need to call back at two. I’m ashamed to say how many years it’s been since I’ve had one done.

I also applied for a driver’s license. Not a real one, no. The one all my 17 year old clients are getting. I may have had the legal ability to drive since age 15, but I need to start from scratch here. I figured the first step towards getting the full license or a car was getting this provisional one, so here I am. I had to hand over my passport, which just about gave me a heart attack.

My Very Expensive Proof That I Can Legally Live And Work Here is in that passport. I went out and bought a special delivery envelope, but suspect I won’t be completely at ease until my little paper friend is returned. Next step? Studying for my citizenship test.

Things seem much more manageable when you just do the first logical thing. This is not new to me; however, acting on this knowledge is very new. Particularly when the driving one meant I had to travel for 1.5 hours each way.

I also need to get new glasses before Day Job ceases existing – they pay for my test and part of the glasses. I hate buying new glasses with the fire of a thousand suns, but think I’m going to make an appointment for two weeks’ time – yet another Friday I have booked off work.

Hmm.

I have a job interview Monday. Wasn’t going to write about it at all, but it’s another thing heavily playing into my current throwing my unorganised hands in the air and begging for divine mercy.

‘The aim of therapy is to prevent the finite smothering the infinite.’

This was said last night by our tutor; I think he was paraphrasing from a theorist, and I in turn have written the sentence from memory. So these things get passed on, gently twisting and turning through the ages.

But what a beautiful thought. A noble thought. An impossible thought!

Prevent the agonies of current cirucmstances, self-doubt, anger, fear, desperation, abuse from hiding that which is available in all of us – infinite potential. This IS how I see therapy. In terms of how I work with people, and how I myself am as a client.

It’s my life’s struggle, essentially. To keep a focus inward as well as out. I’m more than my courses, my wanting to get a mortgage, my period pains, my arguments, my worries about new jobs. I am a shining, pure, creative self – and it’s important for me to try to match up my outsides with my insides as best I can.